Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, right, at only 23 years old, just might have the cool demeanor to be the first to defeat five-division world champion Floyd Mayweather, left, on Saturday at MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Photo by Marco Ugarte/The Associated Press

A song called “Cool” was performed in the 1961 movie “West Side Story.” It was about keeping a calm disposition ahead of a big rumble between the Sharks and the Jets, two New York City gangs at odds in the 1950s.

Saul “Canelo” Alvarez would have fit right in there. The red-headed kid from Mexico may be just 23, but he handles himself in such a levelheaded manner inside and outside the ring, it makes one wonder if he might be the first fighter to defeat Floyd Mayweather Jr. when they rumble Saturday in a junior middleweight title fight at MGM Grand in Las Vegas (on Showtime pay-per-view).

For that to happen, a fighter must remain unflappable. He can’t let Mayweather’s words get to him, nor can he let Mayweather’s ability to avoid most punches take him out of his game plan.

During a recent interview, Alvarez was asked what he thinks about Mayweather saying he’s fought others who were tougher than he’s going to be. Alvarez’s response reflected his composure.

“I think that the way he’s talking, he’s underestimating me, but at the same time I think that he’s worried,” Alvarez said. “I think that he’s very, very worried. But he’s always been like that. He’s always been a talker and that’s the kind of person he is, but I don’t care.

“I don’t care what he’s saying, I don’t care what he’s thinking. What I care about is what I’m saying and what I’m thinking and I’m controlling it.”

Indeed, this is not your typical 23-year-old.

“This is a different animal,” said Eric Gomez, matchmaker for Golden Boy Promotions, which promotes Alvarez. “This is a kid who has been on the big stage. There’s no bigger stage than this, but he’s been part of big events and he’s not fazed by it.

“He’s got a single-track mind and his goal is winning. This kid is very intelligent, he doesn’t waste punches.”

Gomez recalled that he was against Alvarez fighting Austin Trout, a slick southpaw, this past April. But Gomez said Alvarez sat him down and explained to him how he was going to defeat Trout, a fellow champion.

“He made me a believer,” Gomez said of Alvarez, who won a wide decision. “He is so calm and so confident. He’s got this quiet confidence about him and he’s very, very mature for his age.”

Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy, echoed that sentiment. He reminded a reporter that Alvarez fought in front of 40,000 against Trout at the Alamodome in San Antonio, and that experiences like that have only strengthened Alvarez’s emotional constitution.

“How you beat Mayweather is that calm demeanor,” Schaefer said. “If you get frustrated, that’s what Mayweather wants. He needs to be calm, cool and collected inside and outside the ring. He’s one determined man.

“It doesn’t matter if a freight train comes at him, he will find a way to avoid it and turn it into a positive. I have not met any fighter with that mental strength.”

Schaefer took it a step further. On Tuesday, Golden Boy president Oscar De La Hoya announced he is checking himself back into a rehabilitation clinic for substance abuse. De La Hoya and Alvarez have grown close, and De La Hoya is perhaps Alvarez’s biggest supporter.

But when De La Hoya told Alvarez he would not be at Saturday’s fight, Alvarez handled it like someone beyond his years.

“What impressed me was his calmness and how he turned that into a positive as well,” Schaefer said. “Now he wants to turn that into a victory for Mexico, as well as for Oscar.”

That all sounds good. But world-class trainer Abel Sanchez of West Covina wonders what it will all mean once the fight starts. Sanchez knows Alvarez well as Alvarez has sparred with Sanchez’s fighter – middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin – several times.

“First of all, ‘Canelo’ has never fought anyone with the patience and the skills of Mayweather,” Sanchez said. “He may have been able to do that with Trout. But Mayweather does little subtle things that keep you on your toes and tire you out and keep you thinking at all times.

“Against Mayweather, he is going to have to work all three minutes of every round because Mayweather is going to make him work.”

As an interview with Alvarez continued, time and again he offered glimpses of a personality that so far has served him well.

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